


Birthmark

by jenny_of_oldstones



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M, vague and not so vague references to past abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-03-31 06:40:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3968248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_of_oldstones/pseuds/jenny_of_oldstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris wonders about a mark on Hawke's body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthmark

By the end of summer, Fenris had memorized every part of Hawke's body.

Some parts more than others.

Sprawled in the enormous bed of the Amell Estate, he slid a hand up the dark hair on the inside of Hawke's leg. Hawke's stomach sunk at the touch, breath drawing into his chest.

They had been rutting all morning and most of the weekend. Both of them were chaffed and more than a little weary of each other, but the groan Fenris won as his hand gently squeezed was more than enough to make him stay.

"I'm not sure you can resuscitate it this time." Hawke's arms were thrown across his face.

"Examining for cause of death then."

"You're obsessed." Hawke flashed a grin. "Cause of death: jacked off silly until all earthly essence was drained and we made Andraste cry."

Fenris chuckled. To say he was obsessed.....perhaps. It was more the fact that this was normal now. He could leave, go home, go out on a mercenary assignment for two weeks and still come back to find Hawke heels up and eager in the sheets. He now rolled Hawke's half-hard cock in hand, luxuriating in its silkenness and the prickling of the sun on his back through the curtains.

"Ready to call it quits?" said Hawke.

"No more than you, evidently. Though there is the matter of this marking here...."

He dragged his thumb across it. It was a subject he had meant to broach for awhile. Hawke was black all over except for a hook shaped pink splotch on the top of his foreskin. Fenris had taken to stroking the mark whenever he got the chance, charmed by it. 

In this instance Hawke stiffened, and not in a good way.

"Other boys used to laugh at me for my birthmark." Hawke lowered his arms and smiled, though as usual there was something hard in his eyes whenever he talked about his childhood in Ferelden. "They used to say: 'a piggy mark for a pig boy." He squashed his nose. " _oink oink._ '" 

"I wasn't aware your family raised pigs," said Fenris.

"We didn't."

He was silent for awhile. Fenris slid his fingers up Hawke's stomach to his chest, threading them through the dense hair. The servants were tugging up weeds in the garden and tossing clods of dirt into a wheelbarrow beyond the curtains. Even farther away gulls were crying, constant even this far up in High Town.

"You know," said Hawke carefully, "if I give you all my secrets, you won't find me nearly as charming."

"That hinges on me finding you charming in the first place."

The slow petting on Hawke's chest suddenly seemed subservient. The conversation should end there. Fenris would push him no further, expect no answers. That was what a man considerate of his lover's wounds would do....or perhaps a fearful slave. He was no longer certain of his own motivations anymore.

"Tell me about the pigs," said Fenris finally.

Hawke's eyes wrinkled at the corners. "Did you know you've been bedding a fat little boy from Denerim?"

"I was under the impression you grew up in Lothering," said Fenris cautiously. He was beginning to understand that the bedroom was a place of release for Hawke in more ways than one, not all of them pleasant. 

"Bethany and Carver's childhood was there. No, I was a roly poly pig boy from Denerim with giant tits." Hawke zoomed his hands out from his chest to demonstrate. "The other kids called me 'fatty tatties.'" 

"Fatty...tatties."

"Inspired, I know. I had zits all over my ass and sweated through every piece of clothing I owned. Maker, I _stank_. The only time other boys let me play with them is when they used me to bully other children: do what we say or fatty tatties will kiss you. Get out of our creek bed or fatty tatties will squeeze you until you explode."

"I have a hard time imagining that." Fenris couldn't keep the chuckle out of his voice.

" _Please._ I played with my sister's dolls all day and held weddings for toads. And in between I got the stuffing beaten out of me by boys and girls alike." He snorted. "I sometimes wonder what they must think now when they hear about the Champion of Kirkwall."

"They probably assume it's not you," said Fenris honestly.

"Followed by the assumption that the real Garrett Hawke probably went and hanged myself. It's the sort of thing they used to wish on me."

"Hmmmmm." Fenris looked down the bedspread.

"What?"

"Nothing, I was just noticing that if you're fishing for pity you forgot your line." 

Hawke swatted his arm. "I wasn't looking for any, you _ass._ It was your question and I was just....trying to open a window, I suppose." 

Hawke receded into himself then. It was something he did whenever he didn't get a desired response. What Hawke could possibly want from Fenris with this tale of depressing boyhood was beyond him. It was hard to feel sorry when he had little with which to compare.

"So tell me," said Fenris, opting for a different avenue. He stroked his thumb over the birthmark again. "What does that have to do with _this?_ " 

Hawke gave a faint smile. "Children are awful."

"I'll take your word for it."

"You might be luckier in that regard than you think." Hawke's eyes grew distant. "There was one boy who...."

Gone. Just as quickly as it had opened his expression snapped shut and went opaque. Trapped in memory or sudden doubt or both, it was hard to tell. 

"I did a lot of things because I thought it would make him my friend," he whispered at last.

"Such as?"

" _Stupid_ things. The sort you don't tell your mother about." Hawke's mouth twisted. "Seems to be a lifelong problem."

Something in the room shifted. There was a pressure now, stirred up from some dark lake bottom, a pocket of old, foul air begging to be burst. Fenris had no way of discerning whether the held silence was plea to nudge Hawke along or a plea to please, end this now: I will answer no matter what you ask, _so end it now._ Fenris knew what a slave would do. What he, a man in bed with his lover would....

"You still haven't told me a story," he said.

"Haven't I?" Hawke's brow furrowed as he turned against the pillow. "And what about you?" He reached up and flicked a mole on Fenris' shoulder. "What's the story behind this?"

Fenris batted his hand away. "There is no story."

"Not so game anymore?" Hawke's face softened. He ghosted a thumb over the mole. It was raised and cracked, an ugly imperfection. "I've always liked this mark....it's very you."

Fenris' nose crinkled. If he wanted, he could tell Hawke of the many times Danarius had loudly contemplated burning the mark off with a fire poker. He could tell him of the way Hadriana used to pick at it with her fingernail until it bled, lip curled in disgust as if killing a cockroach. He could talk about all the nights he himself had tried gouging the hideous thing out with a knife, better to bear the pink scar than the shit colored, attention-drawing _thing_ on his body, better to own himself rather than be owned by a stain and all the toxic memories attached to it-

It was only then that Fenris realized that Hawke was watching him...and that there were two pressures in the room now, two huge and terrifying histories, both left unsaid.

He felt a sudden rush of shame.

"There is no story." Fenris removed Hawke's hand again, gentler this time.

"You were the one who brought it up in the first place," murmured Hawke sullenly.

"I did. And I apologize."

Muffled music wandered into the room, stringed melodies from some neighbor's open window. The air was hot and close. For a moment it seemed Hawke might roll over, but he stayed, frowning up at the canopy of his bed.

"Back then...I used to think things couldn't get worse. If every day was terrible, the pattern had to break eventually, right? Sooner or later we'd move again and I'd get to pretend that I was someone who wasn't _me_. Then father died and, well, that went to shit." He hesitated. "Do you ever wonder what you would tell yourself, your younger self, if you could?"

Fenris blinked. He had never imagined himself as a child, not truly. He had a vague notion that he must have of course been one, but beyond that, he could no more fathom himself a little boy than he could a man without lyrium embedded in his skin.

And yet....

There were moments passing through the alienage when he would catch sight of the children playing in the trash that lined the canals. He'd stop and listen to their little voices and wonder....

Was any of it real?

Was the memory of a little boy and girl playing in their master's courtyard, the memory he clung to like a rope in a spinning world, did it ever happen? Did he show Varania the bird eggs he found in the lemon tree and the spider that shown like a jewel in a rain damp web? Was his hair as black as he imagined it must have been? Was he was quiet? When he skinned his knee did he cry, or pretend not to, or hit someone instead? Did he know how loved he truly was?

That one day he would disappear?

"What would you say?" he answered, instead of answering.

Hawke turned his head against the pillow. "I would say I'm sorry."

That much at least they had in common.

Fenris caught Hawke's mouth in a kiss. His body hurt now all over in a way he didn't like, and he longed for the easy ache of the last few days. Hawke was eager to give it. He let Fenris roll on top of him, and put his mouth to better use than talk of things that could never be, perhaps had never been. 

When they were done, he unhooked Hawke's legs from around his waist brushed his fingers, apologetically, across the birthmark again.

"You do realize this means I'm allowed to tease you about mercilessly about that spot now," Hawke murmured

"Still nothing to tell," said Fenris weakly. Maybe his sister had teased him about it when he was a child. Maybe it was a blessing the he couldn't remember. He supposed he would never know.

"Well," said Hawke, drawing their tired bodies together. "I suppose you'll have to make up your own story then." He pressed his mouth to Fenris' shoulder, then buried his face in his neck.

Yes, thought Fenris, as he shut his eyes....he already had a good start.


End file.
